Life Turns on a Dime - Part Seven

Time moved on and I found myself in the mid 1990's beginning one of the most difficult decades of my life for several different reasons.

To make many long stories short, during this time I was taking every possible opportunity to live my life as close to a woman as I could. Plus during this decade I was going to purge a year or so before my wife passed away. I grew a beard and ballooned to 275 pounds. Also, my Dad and three of my dearest friends were going to pass away and I was going to lose almost everything I worked so hard for during the recession.

Since I have jumped so far ahead, now let me back tract to a couple key events I have written about here in the blog during the past which gave me the courage to move on in the feminine world.

Since I became relatively secure in my abilities to negotiate the world in certain "safe" spots such as clothing and book stores, I felt it was time to spend an evening as close to being a woman as I could. Could I go stealth?

I chose an upscale restaurant bar for my trial because running a similar operation was what I did for a living. I knew once I made it past the hostesses, I would have a fairly easy trip to the bar where a group of professional women gathered after work for a drink most nights. I hoped if I dressed the part I could fit right in...sort of. That is if I could breathe because I was sooooo scared.

The five minutes or so I spent in the parking lot gathering my confidence seemed like five hours before I pulled up my big girl panties and went in. As suspected the hostess gave me the once over and asked if I needed a table and I said no "I was only there for a cocktail" and she directed me to the bar which had a couple big wooden posts on each end. Fortunately, there was a seat open near one, so I could do my "wood" impression blended in,  swept back my long blonde hair and ordered a drink. If indeed the bartender knew anything was amiss I don't know to this day but I was served, ordered another, tipped well and left. As I finally began to breathe again, I knew the night was something I wanted to do again and again.

The evening emboldened me to try to go to other similar places. Some of which I was successful and others not so much, mainly because of having to use the women's restroom. Along the way, I got kicked out of one place, had the cops called on me twice and got screamed at once. Through it all though I knew I had to keep on trying.

The biggest lesson I learned was I needed to adopt one similar style and stick with it. Or, quit being a blonde one night, redhead a couple nights later and a curly brunette a couple nights after that. In essence I was building an exterior image to fit my evolving interior.

Unfortunately, my extra curricular activities brought me more and more into possible contact with my wife.  One night after she caught me out again, we had yet another giant fight which led to me taking a whole bottle of one of my meds which luckily didn't kill me. I knew then the only way to stop the lying and sneaking around (which I considered cheating) was to grow a beard.

I'm proud at least I did because a year and half later she would be gone. Passing away from an unexpected heart attack after 25 years of marriage.

Coming up in the next series of "Dime" posts...what's next...or getting pushed down the slope.

Transgender Veterans

Thanks to Michelle Hart (no relation) for sending along a couple of VA LGBT related links and to Lynn for checking in via the Email route! As it turns out, Lynn and I share treatment close by and she actually hails from somewhat close to Shelle's neck of the woods. ( and both are trans vets.)

Here is the first link  and the second.

Thanks to all three of you for your service!

UpDateable

An estimated 0.7 percent of youth ages 13 to 17, or 150,000 youth, identify as transgender in the United States, according to a new study released by The Williams Institute at the UCLA School of Law. This study is the first to provide population estimates for youth who identify as transgender in each of the 50 states, plus the District of Columbia.
"

By now you have probably heard outgoing President OBama commuted the sentence of transgender veteran Chelsea Manning  allowing the convicted Army leaker to go free nearly three decades early as part of a sweeping move to offer clemency in the final days of his administration.




And a couple comments from our on going "Dime" posts:
Connie... the last post takes us into the mid to late 1990's!

And Pat:

"I think that if I have read you correctly it was a long slow process over the years that led to your epiphany that you are transgender. I would surmise that if you are transgender then getting out and about while dressed for shopping, restaurants, etc. was not a slippery slope but an affirmation of your core essence. 

Is the slippery slope analogy related to the concept of sneaking out on you wife to seek your feminine affirmation. If so that is a difficult issue. A real strong part of you (us) wants and needs to get out and about presenting in the female gender. At the same time we know that our wives may not like that idea. They may resist all gender issues or they may simply fear that people will find out and that there will be the issues that go with that. In any event I know that my wife fears disclosure and she fears, rationally or otherwise, all the bad things that can happen if I were out in a dress. This presents a bit of a hard choice. We need to go out but our going out upsets the person we love. Is the compromise to simply not tell her we are going out while dressed? Is this your slippery slope?"

Yes Pat, perhaps to put it more succinctly, deep down inside I knew I was transgender. The "slippery slope" reference came as I kept making excuses not to follow my heart until I was pushed into it by others as you will read in an upcoming post. 

My wife was a critical part of all of this of course, until she passed away.

And finally again from Connie:

"OOOOO...Hot in Cleveland! Did you ever apply to be a member of the Vanity Club sorority? They consider themselves to be "A" listers, I'm sure, but the fact that they do is enough to keep me far away from them (I was urged relentlessly by one of them to submit my photo(s) and profile).

 I never found posting a ton of pics to be validating, nor did I find "making the scene" with a gaggle of cross dressers validating. I'll always be grateful that they were there to get me jump-started, but the quick lesson I got was that I was not like them. I think we sometimes need to experience things just to find what we ARE NOT in our journeys to find who we are."

No. I was never a member (or applied to the Vanity Club. As you said I was busy experiencing things on my path to transgender self discovery!

Life Turns on a Dime - Part Six

Very simply, German Village is an upscale restored historical neighborhood just South of downtown Columbus, Ohio. One of the "A" listers I mentioned in a previous post bought a burnt out old brick there and restored it to a beautiful home. Before I go any further, the owner was not a "trans-nazi" so my wife and I were invited to small parties there. I will refer to the owner as "she" because she went on to have SRS.

The parties were fascinating. Anyone from cross dressers not in drag to the most down to earth transgender women in the world were there. Sometimes in tow with an admirer or even a lesbian. I learned tons in a short period of time. Often I learned all the hormones or operations in the world couldn't "make" a reasonable facsimile of a cis woman.

I also learned how a woman can be physically trapped by a larger man when a very big admirer cornered and trapped me in a narrow hallway- until I could be rescued by my wife.

At the same time, I was getting out and about more in Columbus shopping during the day. Fashions during the day included lite jackets, short skirts and opaque hose, perfect items from my wardrobe.

You may ask, where was my wife during all of this? When she was working, I was going out and hiding the fact I did and hoping to get all the makeup off my face. Again and again I was not happy about the lying and hiding behind my skirts and wigs but the more I learned about a feminine life, the more I loved it.

Along the way too, I was learning much more than ever before because I found people wanted to talk to me and took it I was a bitch if I didn't respond. Especially in restaurants where I began to stop and eat.

So before I knew it, a feminine part of me was emerging I wasn't sure I even had and I knew I was on a real slippery slope. However, the ripping and tearing of trying to live two lives was a terrible experience I wouldn't wish on anyone. My drinking continued and nothing seemed to work as I continued to ignore the obvious. I was transgender.

Life Turns on a Dime Part Five

 For me these were the days shortly after Virginia Prince and her Transvestia publication burst upon the scene. I was still amazed others in the world felt the same way I did. So, I ordered several issues of Transvestia and discovered a group of hetero sexual transvestites who held mixers through out the country. The closest to me was a very drive able Cleveland, Ohio so I paid my dues and headed to my first of several mixers.  

From those mixers I learned several important lessons including a much closer chapter forming in much closer Columbus, Ohio. 

Other lessons learned were some there were hetero questioning or as I called them "admirers in drag" cross dressers, and even a few who were on their way to perhaps a stealth (SRS) transsexual full time existence as a woman.

What Virginia never wrote about though was the difference internally was between a male who could pass as a female and one who had a feminine soul. So I know Virginia and others considered her a transgender pioneer but I am one of those who is not so sure.

I also discovered a very distinct social system as distinct as the one high school girls had. Very quickly I called them the "A" listers  because of their "mean girl" style social clique. You definitely had to look a certain way to be invited into the group. Which of course I didn't. However, these also were the ones who left the motel/hotel to go party elsewhere later in the evening. Later on I would attach the "trans-nazi" label to them but still tagged along-invited or not.

Other notable exceptions to the norm were the guys in their fancy dresses and smoking cigars as if to not let too much of their male self go.

Two dimes were dropped on me during these mixers in Cleveland. One, was an invite to join the group in Columbus and the other thanks to a free makeover at a mixer.

I pulled up my big girl panties and let a makeup artist take all my war paint off and start over. The results were startling. I was even invited to go along with the "A" listers without having to invite myself. Most importantly though as the night was beginning to wind down (right in front of all of them, a guy who seemed real nice invited me to stay over for a drink. I often wondered what would have happened had I said yes?

As promised though, I discovered an even smaller incredibly diverse group to learn from in Columbus as time marched ever forward.

Coming up next, German Village.

A Taste of Ivory

Ivory Aquino never thought there would be roles for a transgender girl from the Philippines, so she was prepared to give up on her childhood dream of being an actor.

“I didn’t feel at that time that there were any roles I could do,” Aquino tells PEOPLE exclusively about her despair.

So, with acting seemingly out of the question, Aquino decided to try her hand at becoming a singer.

“With androgynous figures like David Bowie, I thought I could do music without thinking about gender,” she says in the upcoming issue of PEOPLE, on newsstands Friday.

But after moving to the U.S. in her teens, and undergoing her gender confirmation surgery out of the country at age 26, Aquino had a revelation.

“My outsides finally felt like my insides,” she says. “The first thought that came to mind was, ‘I can act again!’ ”

Aquino, who stars as the trans activist Cecilia Chung in the ABC mini series, is still in the beginning of her acting career.

For more, go here.

Life Turns on a Dime, Part Four

I call this time in the mid 1980's my validation time.

I was still struggling with the fact that dressing trashy versus classy was not the way to  go and teasing truckers on the interstate with a hiked up skirt was not going to work.  Plus I still couldn't get it through my thick noggin why it wouldn't.

Very basically a cross dresser dresses for what a man wants to see and a transgender woman (in order to survive in the world) must take into consideration what women want to see too.

After yet another viscous fight between my wife and I, she said "You make a terrible woman." Of course I was devastated!  All  the work shaving my legs and mirror worship just couldn't be wrong. Then she said, "I'm not referring to the way you look. I am referring to the way you act and think."

You would have thought even I would begin to get through my thick noggin what she was talking about and for once I was getting a glimmer of hope. On my trips out cross dressed, I was beginning to notice more of the world around me. About this time too, my wife would even go out with me to dinner in Columbus. So if I didn't "dress like a slut" (as she put it) I would have even more chances to live as a woman. The more I lived it-the more I loved it.

About this time was when transgender began to creep into the public's vocabulary replacing the all encompassing transvestites or transsexuals on either end of the spectrum. I began to think-could transgender be me?

Shortly we moved back up towards Columbus, Ohio and I became involved with one of the most diverse groups within a group I had ever seen or been involved with.

I was about to find another dime and have a real idea what validation really meant.

Don't Blame me Dammit!!

Who had the brilliant idea for me to write a blog approximately five years ago????

CONNIE that's who. As Stana or Paula or Shelle or Mandy can tell you, keeping up on a blog takes a tremendous amount of time for almost no monetary return.

Ironically, even though we may live oceans apart (Paula) or shared a different transgender veteran  (Shelle) experience, threads run thru each blog which ultimately make us trans sisters. Keep up the good work ladies!

FYI, Connie and I met on another LGBT message board type format when she was bashing a group of "trans-nazi's" My lesson learned was a pretty trans picture for the most part did not equate out to a pretty/warm interior. Somehow, many of them neglected to finish that part of their MtF gender transition.

Imagine that.

They Call Me the Breeze

Yesterday I was trusted to make one of my rare solo trips to the grocery store.

In the morning I took a shower and washed my hair (hey it was Friday :) ) I have naturally wavy hair and normally I just mousse it out a little while it is still wet. I call it my "mousse is loose look."

As it turned out, Friday afternoon was really windy with all the wild weather we have been having. Freezing rain last night all the way to a high in the 60's by Monday/Tuesday. So the mousse was really rocking!

Either I am gaining weight again in my hips/butt region, or my fave jeans are beginning to fill out better and look good with my calf high boots. A big fluffy sweater and it was off to the store for me...wind and all.

After all this time I still relish the freedom of going anywhere without caring what anyone else thinks. The grocery store ranks near the top and restaurants near the bottom because of the possibility of still being busted by some little (or not so little kid).

If for no other reason, my size can create attention. But not yesterday.

No attention from anyone except a blond haired woman wearing sunglasses on a very cloudy day. We exchanged curious glances before I wondered was I "glowing" that much? :)